We just arrived back to our home in the Kilimanjaro region and made ourselves a meal for the first time in 1.5 weeks: pasta with canned mushrooms & tomato sauce. It was a simple meal because we did not visit the market before driving back from Moshi. However, it was alright and will do until tomorrow’s meals at the hospital. This evening, we also decided to explore our backyard further after we realized there were bananas growing back there! Unfortunately, we realized that they have been throwing our trash out amongst the banana trees in the backyard. And because we can only safely drink bottled water here, there are quite a few plastic bottles strewn across the dirt… You might be wondering how life has been here in Tanzania in the past week and a half before these (exciting!) updates on a Monday evening. Let me explain, starting back at the beginning with my flights.
The flights here were pretty brutal because I barely slept on the planes. In fact, I stayed up for 32 hours with only 40 minutes of sleep. I also forgot my headphones, which was a grave mistake. While they gave out those cheap headphones for the plane, only 4 episodes of Sabrina the Good Witch and 4 episodes of Gossip Girl could entertain me for so long. The good news was that my Ethiopian Airlines flights were ripe for people watching! I noticed that people just got up and served themselves from the drink cart, which I had never seen before. Also, one woman yelled at a flight attendant as she was adamant that no one would move to sit next to her (for extra leg room), even if she had not paid for both seats. Surprisingly, she won, and some poor soul had to sit in a middle seat further back in the plane.
When we arrived at the airport in Tanzania, we were taken aback by how beautiful it was with tropical trees and vibrant flowers. Fortunately, our process through customs was simple, and all our bags made it! We were picked up by people from the hospital that we are visiting, and they brought us to our accommodation. It is a lovely house with beautiful front & back yards. In fact, there is a man who stays in a separate house in our backyard who tends to the landscaping and the chickens.
After dropping off our things, we headed to dinner with Reginald, who works for the hospital and whose job it is to make sure we’re okay. Dinner took two hours to get to us, despite very few other patrons at the restaurant. It turns out that this is just the way restaurants work here; they take a long time! At the restaurant, we also got enough water to last us the night. As previously mentioned, we only drink bottled water and brush our teeth with it also. So, water is a pretty precious commodity now, and it didn’t really occur to me how lucky we are to turn on our faucets and get clean water.
The next day, we took a bajaji up to the hospital. For those that don’t know, a bajaji is like a cart motorcycle thing that holds as many people as a car (if you really squeeze in there). On our first day, the staff at the hospital greeted us with informational presentations, and we ate the lunch that was provided for free that day because they had other visitors. Lunch is pretty standard at the hospital, and it consists of the following: rice or ugali, beans, a choice of meat (beef, chicken, or fish), cooked spinach, and okra & tomatoes. It had frankly grown on me, and I’m glad that it doesn’t make me sick (which we’ll touch on in a few moments).
We also got a tour of the hospital that day, which was very eye opening. Their emergency room is one room. While they have new buildings for the ICU and radiology, these spaces aren’t quite being utilized yet. We also walked through buildings with patients on oxygen tanks, which was difficult to see. A child with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis was the most difficult to watch as they labored to breathe on oxygen. This child will remain at the hospital for at least eight months without having any visits from family. It was truly heartbreaking, and it was also difficult to hear from other adult patients who had already been there for that long and just wanted us to interact with them.
The workday here ends around 3:30, so after we were done for the day, we headed to Moshi, which is a city in the region. There really isn’t anything to do here otherwise, so we wanted to head into the city for more options. Unfortunately, our driver didn’t really understand where we wanted to go and dropped us off in the wrong location in the dark. Fortunately, we got a hold of the guy who was helping with our house there, and he was able to pick us up. Our house in Moshi is lovely. I would know because I have spent a lot of time sitting in it due to traveler’s diarrhea.
You see, that night we went out to dinner with some Irish medical students also staying on the same compound as us. I went ahead and ordered the highly recommended enchiladas. My grave mistake was ordering a chai latte. I thought it would be good since it was a hot drink! I was wrong. Consequently, I spent the entire weekend housebound. I will spare you the details.
I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post, but I will be uploading a gallery once I am back in the United States. I don’t have great service here and very unpredictable WIFI at the hospital! Follow along for Days 5-8 & Days 9-12!